It’s no secret, I get VERY into Halloween.

It all started in 2011 when I moved to LA and had no money. I remember thinking, “what EPIC costume can I make for under twenty dollars?”

I drove my mint green pimp-esque Jaguar to a craft store in the valley… “I bet I could make myself Poison Ivy from the DC Universe comics on the cheap.”

I marched into that craft store to find some fake plastic-coated ivy. Bingo. They had it. The kind with metal wire inside too. Perfection. As I rounded the corner of the aisle to use my last twenty bucks to check out, I find a TWENTY DOLLAR BILL on the floor.

I’ll never forget that. Holy fuck did I need that extra cash. “Perfect,” I thought. “Now I can buy a cheap bottle of liquor on my way home.”

With my little money, my newly found jackpot, and some crafty usage of things I owned along with my sewing skills, my first epic costume was born.

I think I’ve fallen in love with Halloween for the performance of it all: the commitment, the effort, the craftsmanship. I love pulling off actually looking like the character I’m emulating, crafting the entire look by hand, even going so far as to become Leeloo from 5th element — peep this video.

Here’s what makes a costume so fun for me: I know I’m performing. The whole point is the transformation, the commitment to the bit. Nobody’s fooled. Nobody is supposed to be.

I can be Poison Ivy or Doja Cat or a famous statue for a few hours, but then I go home, wash off the body paint (RIP my bathtub EVERY year), and I'm just... me again…Destroying yet another pillow case with wig cap glue and colored hair spray that didn’t fully come off despite scrubbing my body with dish soap.

But now it feels like we're all walking around in costumes 24/7. The exhausting part isn't the creativity or the performance — it's pretending we're not performing. That we aren’t curating our life to show up as “authentic” as possible, completely pre-meditated for the ‘gram, of course.

At least on Halloween, we're honest about the theater of it all.

The Hustle

So what are these everyday costumes we're all wearing?

Let me walk you through the greatest hits:

The "I'm So Busy" Costume
You know this one. The person who responds to "how are you?" with a screenshot of their calendar. They're up at 5am, triple-booked, running on fumes and pure willpower. Look how important they are! Look how in-demand!

I’ve been her. If everyone sees I’m busy then clearly I’m doing something right. If you're not publicly exhausted, are you even successful?

Now, I feel like it’s a flex to have a malleable schedule. “YES I can make time to see you. YES I can drop everything and meet you for a quick coffee at 6pm because the ‘everything’ I’m referring to is just my made up pile of overdue tasks that I gave myself.”

The "Raw and Vulnerable" Costume
This is my personal favorite. Someone posts a "super raw, unfiltered" photo where they're crying or makeupless or in bed all bummed out. Except... they took 31 versions of the photo. And workshopped the caption. And scheduled it for optimal engagement.

Don't get me wrong — actual vulnerability is beautiful. But performed vulnerability? It’s just emotional theatrics with a perfectly halo’d selfie light.

I've been guilty of this one too. The irony isn't lost on me that even our breakdowns have become content. We're not just having feelings anymore — we're auditioning with them for engagement.

The "Ethical Everything" Costume
Ethical AI! Ethical billionaires! Ethical fast fashion! Everyone's wearing the "I'm one of the good ones" costume lately.

Brands slap "ethical" on things the way I once slapped ivy leaves on my body — except at least I knew my costume was bullshit.

The "Effortless Success" Costume
Oh, this one's good. "I just woke up like this!" (After a six-step skincare routine, perfect lighting, and three years of therapy.) "This business just took off!" (After hidden nepotism and a trust fund safety net.)

The costume here is making it look easy. God forbid anyone see you actually trying. That would be so... uncool.

I’ve worn this one too: Posting about a “spontaneous” win that took months of behind-the-scenes grinding, and 47 emails sent while being ghosted by 46 of them. We’re all pretending gravity works differently for us, probably only for our own public-facing sanity.

The "Relatable Queen" Costume
The pick-me’s. The calculated casualness of it all. Messy bun: intentional. Unhinged tweet: workshopped. Sharing that you also eat cereal for dinner. “I just look like this even though I haven’t been to the gym in three months!”

Guilty. There’s a past me that definitely crafted the perfect “I’m such a mess lollll” caption while picking which kind of mess would make me most relatable and likeable.

It's all performance art pretending to be a documentary. We’re so busy documenting our lives that we often forget to actually live them.

The Chill

Most of us aren’t wearing these costumes because we’re assholes.

We’re wearing them because somewhere along the way, this became the price of admission. The cost of creating your own opportunities where they once were gate kept.

Want to build a business? Perform the hustle — prove you have what it takes.

Want to connect with people? Perform your relatability.

Want to be taken seriously? Perform the effortless success.

The algorithm, the culture, the economy — they all demand the costume.

At some point, just being yourself stopped being enough. Publicly, at least.

Be yourself, but make it content. Be authentic, but make it marketable. Be real, but make it palatable.

Sure, we're all walking around in costumes. But maybe we're just trying our best with the world we were handed.

Costumes are my favorite, but they're fucking exhausting to wear all day — “Don’t bump into me you’ll rub off my paint!” while dodging nip slips and trying to pee around hot glued body shrapnel.

Once the theatrics are done, the best part about Halloween is taking the costume off. And maybe we need more of that energy in everyday life.

Not "authentic content about taking off the costume" — just... actually taking it off. When no one's watching. When there's no caption to write. When it doesn't need to mean anything or teach anyone anything.

What if we saved the performance for when it actually matters? For the projects we care about, the creativity that lights us up, the moments where we genuinely want to transform into something else? Get that shine on!

And the rest of the time? What if we were just... fine with being just a little unremarkable.

I'm not saying delete your Instagram or go live in the woods (though if that's your vibe, respect). I'm saying maybe we stop treating every moment like it needs to be documented, curated, or turned into proof that we're living our best life.

Maybe we let ourselves… have wins that stay private. Be a real, unaesthetic mess. Work hard without performing the grind. Rest without justifying why we deserve it.

Maybe we become the person who eats cereal for dinner and doesn’t talk about it. The gym rat who’s results speak louder than the mirror selfies. Someone who has a good day without needing to publicly prove it.

Take the damn costume off.

Be so unremarkably yourself that there's nothing to perform.

And on that note, just wait for THIS year’s costume…

Upcoming Shows

Speaking of silent wins, LA has been full of them. I haven’t been sharing much, and even my drop-ins at usual clubs I kept offline — I’m working out new stuff and I want you guys to come see me do LONG sets. That being said…

Headlining the Vixen Theater in McHenry, IL October 29th

A VERY special show in the big theater at iO Chicago October 30th

Laugh Factory Chicago November 1st

MOBILE, ALABAMA Thursday Nov 6 @ The Crescent Theater 7pm

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA Friday Nov 7 @ The Howlin’ Wolf 8pm

Tickets for Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Alaska, Detroit, Vegas and headlining in LA in December are coming in the next newsletter or so. Feel free to respond and let me know where you want me to play as well. Big city slate for 2026, including my special taping…

Love you all and cheers to the hustle + chill. We costume, but keep it real.

xx NPH